[mhking]

In the DC shooting, the park in question (unless they've added tons of lights in the last few years) gets rather dark at night. It's a classic urban park; it butts up to the intersection of Kalmia/Georgia/Eastern/Alaska avenues with lots of large trees within. Georgia Avenue (US 29) is very well travelled at all hours of the day or night in that stretch; it is about a mile and a half north of Walter Reed Army Medical, and about a mile or so south of the Silver Spring Metro station.

I haven't been there in several years, so I'm not sure of all the businesses there these days, but if memory serves, the park is on the northeast corner of the intesection; there was a Roy Rogers (IIRC, those are now all Hardees') on the southeast corner, a small gas station adjacent to a liquor store and a KFC on the southwest corner, and small shops on the northwest corner. (I lived a few blocks up Eastern Ave. from that intersection).

In any event, a quick getaway would work; the Beltway is about three miles north; going through downtown Silver Spring, where one could continue up Georgia Ave., northeastward on Colesville Rd, or either east or west on MD 410 (E-W Highway).

[aristeides]

Look at this morning's Washington Post article. Apparently the D.C. cops have found gunpowder traces at the wall of a church nearby. I don't know the church, but maybe you do. Look at the article.